cover image The Russian Challenge and the Year 2000: The USSR and the Year 2000

The Russian Challenge and the Year 2000: The USSR and the Year 2000

Alexander Yanov. Blackwell Publishers, $29.95 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-631-15334-4

Yanov focuses on the Soviet extreme right wing, fueled by a resurgence of Russian nationalism, dedicated to military solutions, anti-Western and anti-Semitic in its outlook. His disturbing thesis is that if the reforms attempted by Gorbachev do not succeed, a right-wing takeover in the U.S.S.R. is possible. Therefore, he stresses, instead of treating the Soviet Union as if it were a monolithic empire, U.S. leaders should support the reform elements and weaken the ultraright nationalists. Now a professor at City University of New York, Yanov was driven into exile by Brezhnev in 1974. He brings a unique perspective to the Russian political scene, analyzing a line of thought running from the Slavophiles of 1830-1850 to modern ideologues who promote imperial nationalism as the engine of a new Soviet fascism. A chilling book. (October 27)